


you're the direction I follow

by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication)



Series: Maleval Week 2014 [2]
Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Maleval Week, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 12:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1983207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentintoxication/pseuds/bemusedlybespectacled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>And I can't think of anybody else</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Who I hate to miss as much as I hate missing you.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After an argument, Diaval spends several months alone.</p>
<p>For Maleval Week: the day 2 prompt was "tragedy/pain (+death/fatal injury)." I chose "pain."</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're the direction I follow

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [a hundred years or more](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1792093) by [rufeepeach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach). 



> This is a little thing I wrote in response to rufeepeach's exquisitely written "a hundred years or more." It makes much more sense if you read that one first. But, to summarize: Maleficent never kissed Aurora, so the curse never broke.

For a few hours, all he does is fly. He loses himself in the beating of his wings and the rush of air beneath him, does complicated rolls and drops to distract himself. But when night sets in, he's left alone with only his thoughts, too human for a raven.

* * *

For two weeks, he is fuming, furious. Maleficent has given up. She has _given up_. She's losing herself in her own misery, not even _trying_ to find someone to break the curse. In his darker moments, Diaval wonders if she doesn't want the curse to break after all, if her self-imposed immurement is just another way of wallowing in self-pity. Sometimes he wonders if she even loves Aurora at all. But the sharp edge of his anger blunts, the wild fury in his heart subsides. He can't judge her for her pain. He knows something about deliberate exile, after all.

* * *

The other ravens don't understand him. He gathers food with the rest of them, plays with their nestlings, but he has a strangeness to him that unnerves them. He spends a month in one flock before they drive him out, two months in another before they, too, decide he's a danger to them. He's too human for them, though they don't realize it, and what they don't understand, they fear.

He lives by himself after that, and his pain and his anger fade away, to be replaced with an emotion he later recognizes as pride. He knows that she'll never leave the tower, not even to apologize to him, and yet he stays away, not wanting to have to face her after so long. He misses Aurora, he misses Phillip and his sweet children - how old is Rory now? does she miss his stories? - and yet he can't go back.

Instead he travels behind the Wall. He doesn't reveal himself, never turns from raven to man. It's another world there, a world that's grown since Maleficent left. With no threat from the humans, they're free to live in peace once more, and Diaval watches them contentedly, their happiness warming him.

* * *

He lives there for two months before he wonders whether or not he should return to Maleficent and Aurora, in the tower that still stands against the horizon line. He dithers for a fortnight before he decides that it's time. He'll need some sort of apology, he thinks, and he settles on catching her food, the way he used to when she'd first started taking cat form. It takes him a while to find a suitable rat, the forest floor still covered with snow and dark with evening shadows, but he soon spots one emerging from its winter hole.

He's got the rat in his mouth when fire rakes across his right side. A wolf. He was so engrossed in his hunt that he didn't think to make sure he was safe. Frantic, he beats his wings hard, trying to get out of reach, but he feels sharp teeth close around his wing, snapping the fragile bones. It throws him to the ground so hard he almost drops the rat. Away. He has to get away. The wolf's alone, there's no net to hold him, and Diaval flies with all his strength to the nearest tree.

He climbs higher, to the thin branches above the canopy. He was closer to the castle than he thought, it seems, and yet the distance seems impossibly far. There's a lamp lit in Aurora's room, and he flies to the light with all his strength, flying directly through the thankfully-open window with only a fraction of his usual grace.

Maleficent is sitting by the fire, reading a book, Kinloch playing cat's cradle at her feet. He drops the rat by her feet, and even as she says _well, well_ (really, as if she hadn't missed him), she smiles, and his pain fades. He shifts.

* * *

“Who did this to you?” she asks.

“Got on the wrong side of a wolf," he explains. "I told you I hate dogs.”

“Yes," Maleficent says, "yes, you did." She's crying, and he's missed her more than he realized, and her face is pressed against his neck and he's holding her to him with his unbroken arm because he doesn't want her to pull away. When Kinloch returns with the bowl of water, he lets go only reluctantly, offering her his other arm.

He regrets that decision almost immediately, and he hisses as she starts to clean his gashes. She brushes the cloth just wrong against a deep bite mark and he flinches, biting back a howl of pain and growling through his teeth instead.

"You could turn into a raven again," she says, "and squawk as loudly as you want."

"I've been a raven long enough," he replies, "and it'll still hurt either way."

"Healing your arm will hurt worse than this, you know."

"Oh, wonderful. Just what I wanted for Yule."

"Yule was months ago. Stop _flinching_."

"Healers are supposed to be kind and gentle."

"And men aren't supposed to smell like wet feathers, but here we are."

* * *

She's right. Healing his arm does hurt worse. He can feel the bones writhe in her grasp as the gold of her magic swirls around them, straightening before they can be knit together. He doesn't have the energy for wit, focusing only on not screaming. His breath is hard and fast in his lungs as the flesh closes, leaving fresh pink scars, and afterwards he lays on the floor, panting.

"Sit up," she says, "you're not done," and he braces himself for more. But she's only wrapping a blanket around his shoulders and seating him in front of the fire.

* * *

She curls beside him in her cat form afterwards, and he strokes the soft fur beneath his fingers. He's too exhausted to do more, even to give voice to his months-old apologies, but she's already forgiven him, as he has her. The fire is warm. He smiles, and Maleficent purrs.


End file.
